NVIDIA's Fermi: Architected for Tesla, 3 Billion Transistors in 2010
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Today's launch is strange. I tried to convince NVIDIA to release more information about Fermi but was met with staunch resistance from the company. NVIDIA claims that by pre-announcing Fermi's performance levels it would seriously hurt its existing business. It's up to you whether or not you want to believe that.
Last quarter the Tesla business unit made $10M. That's not a whole lot of money for a company that, at its peak, grossed $1B in a single quarter. NVIDIA believes that Fermi is when that will all change. To borrow a horrendously overused phrase, Fermi is the inflection point for NVIDIA's Tesla sales.
By adding support for ECC, enabling C++ and easier Visual Studio integration, NVIDIA believes that Fermi will open its Tesla business up to a group of clients that would previously not so much as speak to NVIDIA. ECC is the killer feature there.
While the bulk of NVIDIA's revenue today comes from 3D graphics, NVIDIA believes that Tegra (mobile) and Tesla are the future growth segments for the company. This hints at a very troubling future for GPU makers - are we soon approaching the Atom-ization of graphics cards?
Will 2010 be the beginning of good enough performance in PC games? Display resolutions have pretty much stagnated, PC games are first developed on consoles which have inferior hardware and thus don't have as high the GPU requirements. The fact that NVIDIA is looking to Tegra and Tesla to grow the company is very telling. Then again, perhaps a brand new approach to graphics is what we'll need for the re-invigoration of PC game development. Larrabee.
If the TAM for GPUs in HPC is so big, why did NVIDIA only make $10M last quarter? If you ask NVIDIA it has to do with focus and sales.
According to NVIDIA, over the past couple of years NVIDIA's Tesla sales efforts have been scattered. The focus was on selling to any customers that could potentially see a speedup, trying to gain some traction for the Tesla business.
Jen-Hsun did some yelling and now NVIDIA is a bit more focused in that department. If Tesla revenues increase linearly from this point, that's simply not going to be enough. I asked NVIDIA if exponential growth for Tesla was in the cards and if so, when would it happen. The answer was yes and with Fermi.
We'll see how that plays out, but if Fermi doesn't significantly increase Tesla revenues then we know that NVIDIA is in serious trouble.
The architecture looks good, Fermi just needs to be priced right. Oh and the chip needs to hurry up and come out.
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Zingam - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Perhaps next gen consoles would be C++ based and not API based (what a great terminology). So in that sense DirectX won't matter like it won't matter on Larrabee because it will be emulated in software. Larrabee would not have any silicon dedicated to OpenGL or DirectX I think.Once GPUs get fast enough I guess they won;t be called Graphics processors anymore and will support APIs as software implementations.
marc1000 - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
well, perhaps... I was searching the web yesterday for info on the new consoles, it was kinda sad. if we do not get a new minimun-standard (a powerful console), then the PC games will not be that hard to run on PCs... then my old Radeon 3850 is still capable of running almost ALL games with "good enough" permformance (read: average 30-50fps on most of the console ports to PC).and so: no reason to upgrade! :-(
Dobs - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
Personally I think Eyefinity will be remembered as the master stroke as well as first to implement DirectX 11. Nvidia may get 10 fps more in DirectX 11 in Q2 2010 but will still struggle until it has it's own version of Eyefinity.Current uber-cool for the cashed-up is Eyefinity and once you have 3 or 6 monitors you will only buy hardware that will support it. These 'cashed-up' PC gamers are usually Nvidia's favorite customers.
Nvidia needs flexible wrap-around OLED mega resolution monitors to come out yesterday, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen... 5850 which supports 3 monitors came out yesterday. :P
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Nvidia has supported FOUR monitors on say for instance, the 570i sli, for like YEARS dude.Just put in 2 nv cards, plug em up - and off you go, it's right in the motherboard manuals...
Heck you can plug in two ati cards for that matter.
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Anyway on the triple monitor with this 5870/50, the drivers are a mess, some having found the patch won't be for a month, then the extra $100 cable is needed, too, as some have mentioned, that ati has not included.
They're pissed.
Dobs - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
I'll be avoiding the extra $100 cable by getting DisplayPort monitors from the start. Also want to get ips monitor (i think) so that it will support the portrait mode.If I already had 3 non-DisplayPort monitors, I wouldn't mind shelling out for the DisplayPort adapter if that was my only expense. But if the adapter was flakey I'd be upset as well. I know multi-monitors have been around for years, but they've never been this easy to set-up... Even I could do it :P And the drivers will get better in time, and no doubt future games will look to include Eyefinity as well.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Well I do hope you have good luck and that you and your son enjoy it ( no doubt will if you manage get it), and it would be nice if you can eventually link a pic (likely in some future article text area) just because.I think eyefinity has an inherent advantage, cheaper motherboard possible, 3 on one card, and with 3 from the same card, you can have the concave wrap view going with easy setup.
I agree however with the comment that it won't be a widely used feature, and realize most don't even use both monitor hookups on their videocards that are already available as standard, since long ago, say the 9600se and before.
(I use two though, and I have to say it is a huge difference, and much, much better than one)
yacoub - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
Wake up: 99% of people don't give a crap about Eyefinity. Not only do the VAST, VAST majority of customers have just one display, but those who do have multiple ones (like myself) often have completely different displays, not multiple of the same model and size. And then, even when you find that 0.1% of the customer base that has two or more identical monitors side-by-side, you have to find the ones who game on them. Then of those people, find the ones who actually WANT to have their game screen split across two monitors with a thick line of two display borders right in the middle of their image.Eyefinity is relevant to such an infinitesimally small number of people it is laughable every time someone mentions it like it's some sort of "killer app" feature.
Jamahl - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
thats why eyefinity has millions of youtube views already right.yacoub - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
because purchases are measured in YouTube views. wow, just... wow.ClownPuncher - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
It clearly means people are interested enough to look. Wow, just...wow.You don't like it, other people do. Get over it.